Tyler and Greta's Journey to adoption:

Making Lemons Out of Lemonade

We knew we wanted more children, and biologically we were not able to grow our family. After years of doctor visits and tests, our doctor told us our first child was a miracle and that chances of having any more children were very low. After getting this devastating news, we prayed for God to lead us in the right direction as we weighed out additional infertility treatments vs. adoption. Through lots of prayer, it became very clear to us that we should put our resources and emotions into adopting a child who needed a home.

After our hearts became set on adoption, there wasn’t even a question that international adoption would be the best fit for our family. There are certainly pros and cons to domestic and international adoption, but for us, we really liked the idea of becoming a multicultural family and embracing our child’s birth culture.

The next step was narrowing our options down to one country; and that was not an easy task for our family. Since we already had a daughter (age 4 when we started the process), the agency told us we needed to adopt a child at least 1 year younger than Myka. With many countries closing down international adoption, it became clear that China, South Korea, and the Marshall Islands were our best chance of adopting a child under the age of 3. Most likely there would be some medical issues, but with access to such good healthcare in the US, we were up for the challenge. Our hearts first went to adopting a child from South Korea, but we quickly realized that financially we needed to rule South Korea out. Therefore, our final decision was to enter the China program and begin the wait.

As we anticipated up to a year wait for a referral, the agency threw us a curveball. They presented us with a referral for a little boy from South Korea. The families currently waiting for a referral in the Korean program would only accept girls, so they ended up passing the referral on to us. Our agency explained that it is very rare to be in a different countries program and to receive a referral from another country. Our emotions were mixed with excitement and concern. God was presenting us with the answer to our prayers, yet we knew that financially the South Korean program would not be easy for us, and would rule out the option to adopt more children in the future. However, the one thing we have learned multiple times throughout this process is that God answers prayers, even though it's not always in the way we anticipate.

Even though our plans have always been to have more children, while also trying to remain financially stable, God had different plans and provided us with what we needed. At this point, our plans went out the door and we listened to God. Levi became part of our family and was the focus of our prayers. All of our heartache over infertility and the desire to grow our family became emotions of excitement and joy. We felt an abundance of love for a little boy across the world that we have never met. Levi’s story of needing to find a forever family, and our desire to complete our family, came together as God answered our prayers and turned our lemons into lemonade.